Don’t Loose That Personal Touch
Have you ever had a problem with a product and called the company that made it? Those twenty minutes you spent waiting on the phone to talk to someone made you angrier and angrier, right?
Giving the audience candy
It’s a cool Saturday afternoon here in Wisconsin and I’m enjoying some fresh apple-blueberry juice, got a cool drink handy? If you don’t, take a seat, grab something refreshing and let’s talk about something that will be the difference maker in growing your online business.
For twelve years I had a service business and one thing that I knew would separate my business from everyone else’s, was the customer service and experience.
My company’s motto was “great service 24/7.” The problem was my customers would call me 24/7 and it didn’t take long before I burnt out.
Fast forward to the present day, I again have a service/online business and again customer service has to be top-notch. One thing that I’ve been working on and something that businesses lose as they grow, is that personal touch.
It starts when you start
You might be to the point where you’re working on your online business on the side and might not even have your first customer or maybe you just got that first customer. Having that over-the-top personal touch right from the beginning is crucial.
In the past I’ve written about how important it is to take this very serious from the start, having that personal touch from the beginning is as serious as it can get.
What does this mean?
What does it mean to have that personal touch? It means you being human.
I understand wanting to automate things, especially with an online business. Let’s be honest, Tim Ferriss opened our eyes to a world of automation with the Four Hour Work Week.
While the general idea is great, your customer won’t get that over-the-top experience they’re looking for, that experience that will keep them as life-long customers. What people are really looking for is that human connection (Chris Brogan talks about this a lot), which is you.
They don’t want to stay on hold for twenty minutes, they don’t the automated voice. As you scale and get larger, yes you’re going to have to automate but keeping yourself in things as much as possible makes a huge difference.
It’s the little things that count
How cool is it when you send an email to one of your hero’s and they actually respond? I’ve sent several emails to Seth Godin and Chris Brogan, Chris Guillebeau and many more of my hero’s and they responded.
Can you guess how excited I was? How excited do you and would you get? Now imagine you as the hero to your customers and potential customers and you respond. Can you see how it makes a difference?
The amount of time it takes to create that personal touch really isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. Answering that email, retweeting that tweet, commenting back on Facebook.
Do what you can
As you grow your online business and start seeing income and your workload increasing, do what you’ve got to do.
Hire virtual assistants, hire freelancers to ease up the workload but do as much as you can to stay connected to people. When you have some free time, jump in there and interact, that interaction could change someone’s life.
How do you keep that personal touch with what you’re doing online?
